Set in New York City, Venice, and Paris, the film features singing by actors not usually known for their singing. It is among the more critically successful of Allen's later films, although it did not do well commercially. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert ranked it as one of Allen's best.[3]

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The emotions of an extended upper-class family in Manhattan are followed in song from NY to Paris and Venice. Various friends/lovers/acquaintances/relatives act, interact, and sing, in New York, Venice and Paris. Young lovers Holden and Skylar in Manhattan; Skylar's parents, Bob and Steffi; Joe, an ex-husband of Steffi; DJ, a daughter from the marriage of Joe and Steffi; Von, a lady whom Joe meets in Venice; a recently released prison inmate, Charles Ferry, who is inserted between Skyler and Holden, resulting in their breakup.

The film takes classic songs and fits them into an updated scenario, and in some cases with unexpected dance routines. The choreography is lively and the actors and actresses do not look like professional dancers, which makes the music and dance more natural.

The film was well received. As of September 2011, it enjoys a 79% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[4]Janet Maslin wrote a strongly positive review in the New York Times, describing the film as "a delightful and witty compendium of the film maker's favorite things."[5]

Among the film's strongest detractors was Jonathan Rosenbaum, who described it as "creepy" and claimed "this characterless world of Manhattan-Venice-Paris, where love consists only of self-validation, and political convictions of any kind are attributable to either hypocrisy or a brain condition, the me-first nihilism of Allen's frightened worldview is finally given full exposure, and it's a grisly thing to behold."[6]

Most of the performers sing in their own voices, with two exceptions: Goldie Hawn, who was told by Allen to intentionally sing worse because she sang too well to be believable as a normal person just breaking into song, and Drew Barrymore, who convinced Woody Allen that her singing was too awful even for the "realistic singing voice" concept he was going for. Her voice was dubbed by Allen regular Olivia Hayman.

This film was released in North America on 8 December 1996 on three screens. Its opening weekend gross was $131,678 ($43,892 per screen). It ended its North American run with $9,759,200.[1] Outside North America, the film earned an additional $24,874,153, boosting its global gross to $34,633,353.[1]